^ Geez, so much misunderstanding. Then again, this is an Eva forum. We should be used to that by now, eh?

And I always read Kenni's posts (she usually has more interesting shit to say than I do, at least). She has a grasp of Rei's character so few bother with trying to wrap their head around.

Anywho: back to the topic, let's get on-track again, etc.

Evangelion fan since 15 October 2002, Evangelion fanfiction writer since 1 April 2004. (FFN)(AO3)Current avatar:PIKA PIKA MOTHERF**KER!Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. - Franz KafkaClones to the left of me, tsunderes to the right...and here I am, stuck in the middle with Shinji. - how I view my experience with Evangelion-When it comes to Asuka/Shinji, pre-EoE is like moving Mount Everest and post-EoE is like moving the Olympus Mons. Either way, it's moving a mountain. It's just the size of said mountain.-

Rei is the frankenstein of Japan. A tragic person that did not ask to crated but was done so just to be use as a tool by a mad who has gone insane. People tent to like or root for characters like her,hoping that things turn out well.....only for that not to happend. It not her fault there so many Rei shady in animes. You have to blame the writers for not being original or unique or it could be the writer/creater is a fan of Rei too so they made their own version of her for their own series. Besides, not like Rei is the only Eva character who ben copy? Almost every meach anime has a chick who is fire up ready to beat the crap out of someone and half the time it's a red head.

Rei may have started off the most inhuman but by the end of the series she is the most human character left in Eva. While everyone else too busy shooting, killing, yelling, crying, etc... She is trying to help the main characters who has gone psycho on the world around him. Problem is Rei was never fully develop due to anno not knowing what to do whit her after six eps? BOLOGNA!!!!BOLOGNA!!! She is one of the most important character to the series and plot, yet he left her hanging for 20 something eps? Anno is a professional writer and for him to say that is just asinine.

^Agreed, unfortunately Anno made an error in Rei's characterization, he made what he envisioned as the final part of her arc with Shinji - the smile - too soon, and didn't know what to do after. He himself admitted it in an interview.That's why I like the extra-characterization she got in 2.0. Well, Anno being Anno it still ended in tragedy for her, but it's still nice!

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

ElMariachi wrote:^Agreed, unfortunately Anno made an error in Rei's characterization, he made what he envisioned as the final part of her arc with Shinji - the smile - too soon, and didn't know what to do after. He himself admitted it in an interview.That's why I like the extra-characterization she got in 2.0. Well, Anno being Anno it still ended in tragedy for her, but it's still nice!

ElMariachi, I would really like to see the source of this interview. :3

Also, I don't see how Rei faded so much after the Smile. Asuka took over the scene, two episodes after Episode 6 (I believe) and Rei didn't lose importance to Shinji nor to the series' plot.

Rei's importance didn't diminish, but you can't argue that after episode 6 she pretty much became a background character until around episode 20. Her appearances were often brief and scenes that focused on her came around about as often as scenes that focused on Hyuga, Aoba, and Maya.

It's not that she wasn't important, it's just that they had nothing to do with her until the end of the series started getting near.

MarioAyanami128 wrote:ElMariachi, I would really like to see the source of this interview. :3

Reichu posted it at the top the thread, thankfuly. (Come back reichu, your country needs you).

If you read it, arguably people are getting the emphasis wrong. The 'forgot Rei' thing just refers to the fact she gets almost no scenes for the next two episodes. The bigger point is how he says the 'smile' scenes with Shinji 'communicated/finished' her character. In fairness, it's an emotional highpoint.

You could also say 2.0's cooking duel, even if it 'un-forgot' teh Rei by giving her a more continuous arc, are still an anti-climax after the 'bearing her soul to Shinji by the light of moon' dialogues from the original ep.6. That they really bring her character to a point that Poka-poka Rei doesn't, really, and I don't think it gells very well with her other unforgettable highpoint, the 'if I die I can be replaced' scene.

IMHO, the stage 52 scene where she tells Shinji to confront Gendo when they visit Yui's grave was better.

Edit: I wrote all that and forgot the link!

"You're just turning this into a mixture of gibberish and fan service! That's not the Evangelion I know!" - An Asuka, one of many.

^Only if you think the actual cooking was the main point, and not rather a packaging for deeper points, like the mechas were.

It was rather, among other things, that she would ask questions to get the information she needed, and deliberately, without any prior suggestion or relation to "the plan", act to make her personal world (and really the world of "Rei, the girl", not "Rei the terraforming device") and the people around her better. "I like these people, so I make them get along." making their life wishes come true is also not unrelevant, but more to the relationship arc than Rei's own. But the last sentence in her confession goes, "I want to make them get along and [myself personally] feel all poka poka about it/with them/however your fansub renders that. That's a huge step for someone who, so far, just accepted all the painful, suboptimal things around her. Don't expect her to start with the hughest things she's gotten the strongest conditioning for.If she hadn't tragicly died just after, she would've memorized the experince that "unpleasant circumstances can, to a degree, be remedied.", and as more of these approach on the time table... yeah. I liked it more than anything for the same reason that 15 years worth of FF writers never came up with it: That Rei decides to do this shit on her own, that she has agency in this and isn't just reacted at. And it's really just one element in a movie where many things have many layers... The biggest point, Rei wise, is probably the whole "freedom" theme.

As for the original series, that basic "Rei hole" really only goes from eps 7 to 10, she was again getting relevant moments/content from 11 onwards.

Most ppl didn't even notice because they figured it was just the new girl being introduced or passed it off as "she's supposed to be mysterious anyways."

Kendrix wrote:As for the original series, that basic "Rei hole" really only goes from eps 7 to 10, she was again getting relevant moments/content from 11 onwards.

Exactly. I've seen the line "Anno forgot Rei" a lot of times, but if you read the interview all he's only saying is he forgot her for those next few episodes. What's more important is why: he seems to be saying that expressing Rei's character in ep.6 was sort of a climax that cooled Rei's plotline for a while after. After all, she doesn't appear in ep. 7 either.

Us non-2.0 fans' problem with a cooking duel isn't that it looks harem-y but becasue it's still is anticlimatic compared to Rei's high-points in episodes 6 (and 23) and their equivalent scenes in NTE.

Relevant to OP, I used to assume they were just responding to Rei's popularity but now that I've read the 'forgot Rei' interview I can see the case for 'continuing/extending' Rei's character development. The problem then becomes the amount of Asuka's screentime and relationship with Shinji that's been cut out to squeeze in more Rei time. Particularly, I thought this because the manga seems to do the same thing.

Kendrix wrote:That Rei decides to do this shit on her own, that she has agency in this and isn't just reacted at. And it's really just one element in a movie where many things have many layers... The biggest point, Rei wise, is probably the whole "freedom" theme.

Interesting angle. I always thought of it as "submitting to the Yui impulses" theme. After all, I don't have a problem with the cooking duel in itself, it's a good idea to do the 'domestic feeling/Yui impulses/love triangle' thing in principle, it's just that the execution is a little underwhelming. In the movie, Shinji seems only midly enthused by the whole thing - and he doesn't seem interested in Asuka at all, which leaves the whole thing lopsided.

One thing the manga and the movies change in a similar way is how they get other people involved in the Graveyard visit. In the manga, they get that super-cool Rei scene in stage 52 ("yes but it's warm" - good line, Sado!), in the film they let Misato express her motherly urges. In the film, I think she drove him to the cemetery - the manga, she doesn't even know anything about it! But they don't build on it, sadly. (although it does nicely pace out the Gendo-Shinji arc).

If they put that stage 52 scene on screen I would have forgiven 2.0 for all the Asuka-related changes - and the grave visit in ep. 15 is the set up for the "you won't even hold me" moment!

"You're just turning this into a mixture of gibberish and fan service! That's not the Evangelion I know!" - An Asuka, one of many.

I wonder if Rei didn't "cool off" and turn out to be Shinji's mother because consciously or unconsciously Anno realized that he was sculpting her into the perfect otakubait waifu and decided to throw a raging superbitch in training (who is too hot for the club to even handle right now) at his self-insert instead.

the prophecy is trueThe wish for respectability, observed spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, is the greatest deterrent to selfhood and progress.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Us non-2.0 fans' problem with a cooking duel isn't that it looks harem-y but becasue it's still is anticlimatic compared to Rei's high-points in episodes 6 (and 23) and their equivalent scenes in NTE.

Quite the contrary, having her do more mundane stuff helps a lot to "humanize" her more : almost everything about Rei in NGE was either very solemn or bearing lots of foreboding (even mundane stuff like Shinji commenting on how she cleans the class' ground was a foreshadowing of her nature of a clone of Yui!), so seeing her do something completely mundane as a dinner party without it being related to her true nature helps to make us see that she's also able to act as a human being.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Interesting angle. I always thought of it as "submitting to the Yui impulses" theme. After all, I don't have a problem with the cooking duel in itself, it's a good idea to do the 'domestic feeling/Yui impulses/love triangle' thing in principle, it's just that the execution is a little underwhelming. In the movie, Shinji seems only midly enthused by the whole thing - and he doesn't seem interested in Asuka at all, which leaves the whole thing lopsided.

Keep in mind that Shinji didn't know the true purpose of Rei's dinning party (to make him and Gendo get closer and eventually mend their relationship), and when he learned it by Misato, he was too hardcore pissed about Bardiel and Gendo's activation of the Dummy System to give a shit.But even then he was still enthusiast at the prospect of that dinner party, see the scene when he lies at the his room ground after doing his homework, he says that he's eager to be tomorrow to be at Rei's diner party, and that he hopes that his father will come too.Little did he know that this would be the very last normal night of his life...

Chuckman wrote:I wonder if Rei didn't "cool off" and turn out to be Shinji's mother because consciously or unconsciously Anno realized that he was sculpting her into the perfect otakubait waifu and decided to throw a raging superbitch in training (who is too hot for the club to even handle right now) at his self-insert instead.

Wat.When did Rei was a "raging superbitch in training"!?

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

SoryuUberAlles wrote: it's still is anticlimatic compared to Rei's high-points in episodes 6 (and 23) and their equivalent scenes in NTE.

It's not supposed to be a climax, it's hat she does in her everyday life. Shinji related heroic sacrifice is still in there, if not in the exact same constellation. Final scene is there - she wasn't physically saved, but still given some thematic closure. And I hope you're not saying that if she actually had gotten Shinji & Gendo to sit on a table and interact poitively, it would be boring and inconsequential.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Asuka's screentime and relationship with Shinji that's been cut out to squeeze in more Rei time.

You don't know it was "to squeeze in more Rei time" or anything like that. That's pure conjecture. If you want to know ore about the time distribution, read the CR interviews, but basically, there were a lot of characters who all needed time and some prioritizing was necessary, but none of these priorities was ever "maximize Rei time".

Besides, while I don't think Anno & co were already planning on this at that point, 2.0 turned out to be the last part of the tetralogy Rei physically stars in, so if they don't develop her here, it's bye-bye untill final impact - we have the very present impressions she's shown to have left on the overal plot and various other characters, but it's not quite the same as having her speak for herself. Asuka is still very much available for the second half.

Their bonding as comerades and hard road to cexistance are still there, and those were more important points than who exactly he gets to have birds and bees experiences with (wich the manga also shifted to Kaworu, while also leaving 'Asuka as a comerade' perfectly intact or even enhanced (can you imagine something like the garden/"You don't have to try so hard" scene between their series selves?) as much as any 'enhancement' of that sort compensates for the manga's generally reduced level of subtility and depht, good moments notwithstanding. )

SoryuUberAlles wrote: I always thought of it as "submitting to the Yui impulses" theme.

Explain to me where you gather that there ever were such impulses in any continuity. Clones are basically the same as identical twins, Rei's not even a 100% copy, and Yui was not a good mother, so acting like one should make Rei less like her, in anything. Even if you were to argue that Yui did the best given her circumstances, their personalities are never shown to be alike in the slightest. Rebuild shows us far less about her, but we still hear "ambitious mastermind" and get a photo of her with this knowing smile surrounded by aquantances. If that was the point they were trying to make, why not have Fuyu drop some painful detail about how she used to act in a way similar to Rei?Even if you could make a case for any 'maternal impulses' being present, wouldn't it make more sense to blame Lillith, (the "mother" of all humanity), given that we're told there's some sharing of 'metaphysical' components instead of just appearance.

But I'd say even that would be unfounded by all we actually see in either continuity, and unneccesary to explain anything that happens. She wasn't immediately 'drawn' to Shinji like she felt some connection - he had to gradually earn her respect. By killing monsters he was terrified of and listening to what she says. ("Don't say that you have nothing...") Tellingly, ReiQ should have just as much of Yui's DNA as her, yet she barely reacts to Shinji untill he happens to say something that puts her whole existence so far in doubt, but it couldn've been anyone else, and indeed, he didn't add much more than Mari's and Asuka's comments or the sight of the angel. She didn't pick 'cooking' because 'that's such a feminine, domestic thing' - It's made pretty obvious that it's just something that spang to her attention as something that works to bring people together, which she otherwise knows very little of. She had Shinji serve her at the aquarium, (and saw how everyone else was basically talking and getting along, like Kaji and the boys (who had only just met shortly before), was used to having Dinner with Gendo, and then got a spontaneous present in the shape of a bento. Shinji is the one who has 'domestic things' as his stick and hands them to everyone. That's what even suggests it to the girls as a strategy to show him appreciation, 'this time, I do that thing you do for me for you for a change'.If food has any specific relevance, then it is a) because of a similar experience Anno had in his married life (see CR), comming to value the experience of "muching stuff at a table" beyond "sustenance and biologic weirdness", as a social activity and b) Showing the 'ethereal stoic warrior girl' who was previously not connected very much to the eartly realm of normal life growing to appreciate the little everyday joys of life. Another example is "Hello.", and "I actually want to communicate something to the second child".

SoryuUberAlles wrote: In the movie, Shinji seems only midly enthused by the whole thing - and he doesn't seem interested in Asuka at all, which leaves the whole thing lopsided.

When is Shinji ever more than 'only mildly' enthused about anything? That's just how he expresses himself/views things, aways with one foot out of the door and mostly fearing it might go wrong. It was quite important to him to make sure he properly thanked her. As for Asuka, he couldn't react, because she never told him.

Only Asuka ever thought this was a "duell to win his favors" or anything. It never was and that's the point, because he's no prize to be won or a possesion to be fought over. He's a human being, and if she wants to, Asuka can do something for him, or talk to his face. The cooking is windowdressing like the mechas are windowdressing. It was something Rei was doing in part to make him happy, but mainly by inviting Gendo and trying to break the ice between them.This is the meaning of the "bandaid scene" (the bandaids, again, are just metaphors, and not that opaque ones really.) - Rei wanted to make him happy, Asuka just wanted to make him hers. Not that this is a selfish thing, this motivation started when she found honest company and comfort in him in the sleepover scene. She just wants to not be lonely (as she herself stated) and know that she belongs somewhere (EVA 02 gets sealed, Misato conversation) but she doesn't have to fight tooth and claw over that, she just needs to let people give it to her.

Wether he also lusts for her is irrelevant, because even in the original, she thought it was almost completely onesided up to the end. (ep 22 montage) It wouldn't change her arc if only that was changed, if anything, it'd allow people as clearer look at it. Which isn't to say nothing else was changed.Rebuild!Asuka never does anything particularly line-crossing, it's not that they absolutely couldn't get together, it's a question of what she really wants, which she does get a perspective on towards the end of her arc in 2.22.Behold, she choses independence/ her job (which, for whatever it's worth is consistent with the ocassional displays of her series counterpart, see episode 16. The feeling of "Rival out of the way" trumps "friend MIA") and hangs the apron on the wall, not as it always universarly happens the dude, like there is only one dude on the planet. Thank you, thank you, thank you Rebuild!But she also learns that it's no either or (Misato conversation, "...but recently, I've been thinking that spending time around people can be enjoyable, too." )She hasn't lost, or given him up, she has done something nice for him as a friend, earned what could be a new friend if it wasn't for that pesky apocalypse (Rei - Rei and the steady use/moments of gratitude are yet another little arc that 2.22 does with Rei.) and bonded with Misato (turns out all she needed to do for people to give her comfort and appreciation is, say "I feel the need to talk to you." compare/contrast ep 22 "Why am I talking to you?!" and out springs a "Thank you for doing this, Asuka.") who does end up raising her, apocalypse or no apocalypse. That scene, in the wunder, when she fights the Mk 9? "We're counting on you, Asuka!"That's probably what she wanted to hear all along, "We count on you", "Thank you for your hard work", "You can come to me for support at any time".

Interestingly, some of what Misato says ("You are still young and have many things to discover for you in this world") suspiciously resembles what Miyamura said in an old (as in, classic-series asociated) interview when asked what she would like to tell Asuka.

...of couse, the NTI happened and had to burn all of those possibilities and potential discoveries to the ground. But hey, this may have contributed to her friendship with Mari, at least.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:One thing the manga and the movies change in a similar way is how they get other people involved in the Graveyard visit. In the manga, they get that super-cool Rei scene in stage 52

You mean how she told him to basically tell Gendo to his face what it is he feels/thinks/wants?

I don't think we needed a repetition of that after the manga already did it, but that was a pretty cool thing to have Rei say, both because it plays on her less reflected on 'straightforwardness'/'brutal honesty' tendencies/character aspects, and role as a confidante of sorts, but because it's also to a lesser extent than in the manga (since she just suggests something rather that do something) a bit of an 'agency' thing, Shinji might've expected, 'talk about this', or 'act that way', not, "Duh, tell it to his face'. She gets to be right and influence other things that happen, although Manga!Gendo was a lost cause as far as far as getting him to sit on a table with Shinji goes...The scene also has what I'd deem "insider talk for socially awkwards people" ("You know; I get why you would think that's stupid, but I've tried it out and found parties aren't all that bad!"), where manga-Shinji again shows himself a tad brattier and prejudiced than his anime self, but it was still nice to have. The gold of this scene is not solely in the cuteness.(Sequel theorists, me not included, might like that he says, "Now, if only father was at [12 promotion party]")

The manga, despite its overall mildly dissapointing narure (although the last scenes with Rei, despite a few cheesy lines in them, have made me forgive it a lot) does have it's good moments, and that's one of em.Speaking of Asuka (well, further up), I also like this. (As I mentioned before, pretty impossible for their anime versions, but in their defense, the manga ones are just more alike.)

Speaking of the whole cooking thing and Anno's wife: Isn't a character of hers depicted on the chopsticks he gives Rei?Does this mean she exists in the evaverse and Shinji is a fan? Lol. Then again, if he can have an XCT T-shirt, why not this?Imagine: Kensuke: What do you think of manga X?Shinji: Ah, one my favorite authors. If only I was older, harier, and knew more about art...

You mean her behavior in 3.0? Because she had valid reasons to be pissed off, notably the past 14 years of war and having to clean behind Shinji's fuck-up with the spears only to later find him pouting in his entry plug instead of trying to find her and help her. (remember that it's from her point of view, she doesn't know what Shinji has gone through, which still doesn't mean that she doesn't have some valid point about Shinji's behavior)

@ Kendrix : well to be fair, Shinji knew Asuka for too little time to really decide if he's interested in her or not, after all it took him what looks like a few months to get close to Rei.

But well, everyone will see what they want here : the non-shipper will see that Asuka "renouncing" to Shinji in 2.0 and her aggressiveness in 3.0 means that there won't be anything between them, while shippers will see the fact that Asuka was wrong about Rei's reasons for feeling poka poka with Shinji in 2.0 and Mari's teasing of Asuka about her reasons for visiting him in the interrogation room and later her request to Shinji to "go help the Princess" in 3.0 as signs that she still has feelings for him and that a romantic relationship is still possible.

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

Kendrix wrote:When is Shinji ever more than 'only mildly' enthused about anything? That's just how he expresses himself/views things, aways with one foot out of the door and mostly fearing it might go wrong.

ElMariachi wrote:But even then he was still enthusiast at the prospect of that dinner party, see the scene when he lies at the his room ground after doing his homework, (snip)

That's the scene I had in mind. He just doesn't seem to react a great deal. He seems to be more worried about Rei's cooking than her intentions, and Spike/Megumi seem to save the emphasis for thinking about whether Gendo will turn up. Especially I don't believe he'd be willing to blow up the world for her 20 minutes later.

Kendrix wrote:Another example is "Hello.", and "I actually want to communicate something to the second child".

ElMariachi wrote: so seeing her do something completely mundane as a dinner party without it being related to her true nature helps to make us see that she's also able to act as a human being.

Yeah, I remember the scene when the MIB come to her apartment and tell her about the EVA-04 disaster: The pot boils over...It's a nice touch, I just don't think it characterised the Rei-Shinji-Asuka triangle very effectively. Shinji doesn't seem too moved either.

The "buried yui" idea was certainly my take on the "you seemed like a mother" scene. That and Gendo seeing Yui as her in NTE. I assumed it wasn't meant to just be the Ikari men hallucinating. I mean, they take "If I die, I can be replaced" and replace it with her blowing herself up "so that boy doesn't have to pilot again" in NTE. You raise some interesting points and I wish I could address them in detail without omnislashing, so I'll just say I found the broadcast version more affecting when I thought it was handling similar material.

Kendrix wrote:Not that this is a selfish thing, this motivation started when she found honest company and comfort in him in the sleepover scene.

Likewise, I think you're saying a lot of interesting things about Shikinami and I'll admit it's easy to overlook what the whole plot arc means to Shikinami as an independent but brittle young woman. The reason its easy even for Asuka fans to do this is because she just ends up with so little screen time and focus overall. She certainly isn't given a lot of time to dwell on her self-discovery before the activation test - it happens in the ski-lift on the way over...:(

Kendrix wrote:The scene also has what I'd deem "insider talk for socially awkwards people" ("You know; I get why you would think that's stupid, but I've tried it out and found parties aren't all that bad!"), where manga-Shinji again shows himself a tad brattier and prejudiced than his anime self, but it was still nice to have. The gold of this scene is not solely in the cuteness.(Sequel theorists, me not included, might like that he says, "Now, if only father was at [12 promotion party]")

QFT.

I thought the "you don't have to try so hard scene" in stage 25 bit was good. But sometimes Sado seems to dissipate poignant Soryu stuff with a comedic resolution and Sado-Shinji being bratty. Asuka dejectedly protesting "but it's not an act" was good but in the party scene he rubs it in her face and ends with a comedic parody of the choking thing!

Chuckman wrote:I wonder if Rei didn't "cool off" and turn out to be Shinji's mother because consciously or unconsciously Anno realized that he was sculpting her into the perfect otakubait waifu and decided to throw a raging superbitch in training (who is too hot for the club to even handle right now) at his self-insert instead.

I would say the tension with the original elevator scene is what turned me off on 2.0. I've always thought the emotional height that made cooled Anno enough to 'forget teh Rei' is the power of the "piloting is my connection to people" heart-to-heart with Shinji on the Eva scaffolds under the giant moon rather than the "I think you should smile" scene. I believe that's why Rei reaches out to Asuka in a moment of desperation with a colleague who's clearly suffering very greatly this way - because it's her connection to other people. It's a testament to how badly Soryu's doing that Rei - someone she certainly hasn't warmed up to - is reaching out to her the only way she knows how. Inevitably, it doesn't work (the manga gives the same line to Kaworu - still doesn't work). I've always seen what Rei says in ep. 6 and 22 to be linked and I'm guess I'm too attached to what it means to Soryu (especially with DC extra screaming-at-herself-in-the-bathroom) to warm up to it. Especially given that the crushing sense of failure that afflicts Soryu by that point just doesn't seem justified for Shikinami. Why would she slap Rei?

Pursuant to OP, the elevator scene seems a good example of Shikinami's scenes being streamlined to make way for the Ikari family triangle. Kinda like how the "you won't even hold me" kiss in ep. 15 becomes in the manga a comedic almost-kiss with more of what Shinji thinks about Ayanami. Which is still a good moment, but...

"You're just turning this into a mixture of gibberish and fan service! That's not the Evangelion I know!" - An Asuka, one of many.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:That's the scene I had in mind. He just doesn't seem to react a great deal. He seems to be more worried about Rei's cooking than her intentions, and Spike/Megumi seem to save the emphasis for thinking about whether Gendo will turn up. Especially I don't believe he'd be willing to blow up the world for her 20 minutes later.

Well, he has a mundane reaction to a mundane event : Rei is making a dinner party, he's happy for it, is eager to be there, wonder what kind of cooking Rei will make, and then only at last wonders if his father will show up and hope so, after all Gendo is close to Rei, and the only mundane event they share is visiting Yui's grave, not really a place for happy thoughts and tender rekindling!

The fact he deeply cares for her doesn't mean that he should be constantly in awe and react solemnly to everything she does, everyone had a similar reaction, maybe more enthusiast for Misato because she understood what was Rei's plan with that party, to bring Shinji and Gendo closer.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Likewise, I think you're saying a lot of interesting things about Shikinami and I'll admit it's easy to overlook what the whole plot arc means to Shikinami as an independent but brittle young woman. The reason its easy even for Asuka fans to do this is because she just ends up with so little screen time and focus overall. She certainly isn't given a lot of time to dwell on her self-discovery before the activation test - it happens in the ski-lift on the way over...:(

You know, in light of Q, I get the feeling that Asuka's character arc was always meant to be separated from Shinji's, and thus happened off-screen since the Rebuild story is very focused on Shinji. Her interaction with him was the starting point of her realization about her worldview, that having friends actually feels good, that it's okay to rely on others and that she doesn't have to always be the #1, but rather to try her best, and then Bardiel give her character arc a "break" to let the story finish Shinji's current arc with Rei and Zeruel, and then once she woke up somewhere after 2.0, she continued her own character arc, independently of Shinji's, where she probably came to term with Tokyo-3 destroyed, her infected left eye, met and ultimately befriended Mari, and kicked copious amount of asses together against neo-NERV killer bots, leading to the hardass Captain Shikinami we saw in Q.

That doesn't mean that there isn't room for more character development in FINAL, after all it's obvious that she still needs a closure with Shinji about what happened 14 years ago, but it's interesting how she seems to be the only character who got her own character arc that's not dependent on Shinji's - Mari stayed very static character wise, and for Misato we don't know enough of what happened to her and what goes in her head to bring a conclusion yet - That mean that while she can have more character development tied to Shinji, she doesn't necessarily needs to advance her own character, in the end it give the feeling of a strong and independent woman, exactly as Miyamura said in a post-3.0, that finally she can stands on her own two feet now.

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Especially given that the crushing sense of failure that afflicts Soryu by that point just doesn't seem justified for Shikinami. Why would she slap Rei?

Asuka was just told that her beloved EVA-02 will be put on a fridge in favor of the Test Type and the half-ruined Prototype Type for political reasons, she was hardcore pissed, and Rei coming and giving her some advice made her blow up. The result was the same (her slapping Rei) but the reasons different : symptom of her ever growing despair and panic at seeing everything she worked so hard for crashing down around her in NGE, simple frustration and anger to vent-off in Rebuild.keep in mind that while overall Shikinami is much more stable and healthy than Soryu, she's much more physically violent in her behavior : see how she tripped Shinji in their first meeting (in contrast to merely looking at him up and down in episode 8), or the kick she launched at the random student's face when he asked her out, or even the megaton punch in the interrogation as almost the first thing she do at seeing Shinji after 14 years.

Shikinami is much less toxic psychologically, but much rougher physically, question of balance I suppose!

SoryuUberAlles wrote:Pursuant to OP, the elevator scene seems a good example of Shikinami's scenes being streamlined to make way for the Ikari family triangle. Kinda like how the "you won't even hold me" kiss in ep. 15 becomes in the manga a comedic almost-kiss with more of what Shinji thinks about Ayanami. Which is still a good moment, but...

In the Rebuild, the relationship between the surviving Ikari/Ayanami have a much central focus than in NGE, especially with Gendo : he seems to have an agenda beyond simply being reuniting with Yui, has a much more direct and important influence on the events (planned since the beginning that Shinji would become the pilot of EVA-01 and be untrained to be more easily manipulated to awake EVA-01, helped Rei and Shinji to get closer from the shadows in 1.0 and 2.0 so together they awake Unit 01, and of course his more direct role as mankind's antagonist as neo-NERV leader and later overthrown of SEELE making him the Big Bad of the story in 3.0), while Yui get much less focus (scene where she moves her hand to protect Shinji from the falling floodlight when Sachiel attack removed, the only other scene were she intervene being her rejection of the Dummy System)

It's clear that in Rebuild, the mother-child relationship isn't a central theme (see also how the rule that an Eva core should have the pilot's mother soul to work doesn't apply here, also removing all the "returning to the womb" imagery of piloting the Evas, being now pure biomechanical and interchangeable war machines, with EVA-01 being the exception), and let the place to the relationship with the family, seen with Rei now bearing Yui's maiden name, her deeper relationship with Shinji (or at least more overt), and the greater focus on Gendo and Shinji's relationship, notably how the later is essential for the former plans.

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

Chuckman wrote:I wonder if Rei didn't "cool off" and turn out to be Shinji's mother because

As prano seems to portray it, he had the "lolfreud" idea first, but then gradually, this whole character grew/was filled into that outline, not just in a 3rd person "plot instrument" way but a first-person one, too. ("most related to my deepest psyche")Very little second-person interest, but that might be weird with someone who's essentially your inner core of being.

That he's dissatisfied with some reactions to her (and a certain segment of the hardcores can get a tad... hm at times) doesn't mean he thinks everyone who likes her ever must be some grownup thumbsucker with no life.

ElMariachi wrote: helps to make us see that she's also able to act as a human being.

Well, emphasize it. It was always there, it's quite possible for a scene to serve more than one purpose.

Something I noticed recently is how she refers to the random tiny fish as "kotachi.", which might seem more cutesy or emphatic than her common perception might indicate, but if I remind you that, besides all the other stuff she's known for, she's a girl with a reading lamp next to her bed, a pillow with little blue stripes who likes to read a lot (in Rebuild at least, including fables), does it seem that weird?

It was just a neat little characterization detail.Anno really does a lot with the word choice he gives the characters, but the likes of us only get a limited view through the lense of translation.

---

SoryuUberAlles wrote: "you seemed like a mother" scene.

Consider this: What exactly IS a "motherly" way to wring out a towel?Yui could've wrung out her towels in 1000 different ways and they'd all look "motherly" to Shinji, simply because she used to clean up his messes when he was a toddler. It's not like Rei is particularly crazy about housewifey cleanlyness in her own home. By contrast, it seems Yui enjoyed doing that sort of stuff herself despite of how rich she was according to ep 21. We don't get such a comment in the Rebuilds, but then again, we don't get the towel scene either (Although CR reveals it was apparently going to stay for a while)

As for keeping Shinji out of EVA 01, not only does she have her own reasons (he finds it very painful and traumatizing, and she doesn't want him to be traumatized or in pain? This is, of course speculation, but you could look at her comment she makes to Asuka ("You can be happy without the EVa unlike me who's bound to it/not free"), and wonder if maybe there's also a rationale of letting him have what she feels is out of question for her, as a sort of vicarious experience. ) she is acting exactly opposite to Yui's goals. Yui, if I might remind you, puts up a supreme fuss and refuses the Dummy plug so Shinji comes back and stays the designated pilot. If she had just let Gendo use the Dummy, he could've had EVA 01 engage Zeruel with a power cable, and this whole desaster could've been avoided! Then again, Yui might know stuff we won't know untill final. While we don't yet have enough information to surely conclude that for Rebuild, anime!Yui at least had a very deterministic mindset ("It will all happen as it must"), less so than even Gendo. In any case, the "I can be replaced" line is still there, just later, and she's not just justifying taking a huge risk with it, she's outright telling Shinji to kill her along with Zeruel and not risk his own life any further.

As a sidenote, I'm not sure if Anno knew this or intended it to be this sort of thing, but it's actually common/possible for "little movement tics" to be influenced by genetics, I once read about a pair of twins who had very different family situations and political opinions, but despite being separated at birth, they both Apparently, my little cousin walks exactly like his father and I tend to push up my glasses exactly like my paternal grandmother, so much he freaked out when he first noticed me doing it. "Why'd you touch your cheeks that way, you didn't have to" I just did it so my glasses wouldn't be lopsided? Maybe my grandma and I just have the same weird nose bones. Maybe Rei was kneeling and holding her arms in what is the most comfortable or default way for that particular arrangement of muscle, bones and sinews.

Kendrix wrote:This is, of course speculation, but you could look at her comment she makes to Asuka ("You can be happy without the EVa unlike me who's bound to it/not free"), and wonder if maybe there's also a rationale of letting him have what she feels is out of question for her, as a sort of vicarious experience. ) she is acting exactly opposite to Yui's goals.

That is an interesting observation. Perhaps Rei is not so thrilled about being Yui's copy after all.

Kendrix wrote:As for keeping Shinji out of EVA 01, not only does she have her own reasons (he finds it very painful and traumatizing, and she doesn't want him to be traumatized or in pain? This is, of course speculation, but you could look at her comment she makes to Asuka ("You can be happy without the EVa unlike me who's bound to it/not free"), and wonder if maybe there's also a rationale of letting him have what she feels is out of question for her, as a sort of vicarious experience. ) she is acting exactly opposite to Yui's goals. Yui, if I might remind you, puts up a supreme fuss and refuses the Dummy plug so Shinji comes back and stays the designated pilot.

That's assuming that Rei know from who she has been cloned (possible, since in Rebuild Ayanami is Yui's maiden name) and that she knows what's Yui's objective is, which I doubt, since in Rebuild Rei's role in Gendo's plans is far more limited than in NGE, here she's just the half of the "key" to awake EVA-01, the other half being Shinji.Seeing what she said just before kamikazing against Zeruel ("I'll make it so Ikari-kun never had to pilot again!" A total fail by the way) I think it's safe to assume that she only had Shinji's wellbeing in mind, and ignored Yui's plans.

Kendrix wrote:If she had just let Gendo use the Dummy, he could've had EVA 01 engage Zeruel with a power cable, and this whole desaster could've been avoided! Then again, Yui might know stuff we won't know untill final. While we don't yet have enough information to surely conclude that for Rebuild, anime!Yui at least had a very deterministic mindset ("It will all happen as it must"), less so than even Gendo. In any case, the "I can be replaced" line is still there, just later, and she's not just justifying taking a huge risk with it, she's outright telling Shinji to kill her along with Zeruel and not risk his own life any further.

Or the Dummy System would had been obliterated by Big Z, that system seems to be slightly less powerful than Berserk Mode, and an EVA-02 in a Berserk Mode still controlled by its pilot was thrown at him and couldn't even scratch the thing. As sad as it sounds, Pseudo-Evolved mode or Kaworu moving his ass faster with his spear were the only ways to stop Zeruel.

It's possible that Yui sensed that and was the reason why she refused to let the Dummy System take control, because it would fail. It's also possible that she only reacted on an instinctive level : "that Dummy System hurt my son emotionally, I don't want it anymore" (and would had rejected it even in the cases where Shinji was piloting the Eva)

Another interpretation, but that's going rather far in fanwankering, is that Yui and Gendo are in cahoots in Rebuild, that the result of the Contact Experiment, resulting with Yui as Unit 01's control system and the later creation of Rei, was not only known from both, but planned. Since Shinji and Rei awakening EVA-01 and ending absorbed inside EVA-01 alongside Yui was all part of Gendo's plan (as revealed by Fuyu in his infodump from hell in 3.0), maybe it was Gendo's way of bringing his family to safety inside EVA-01 for the moment where things would get really heathen with SEELE. Since Mark.06 was almost finished, it was clear that Zeruel would be Gendo's one and only chance to awake EVA-01, so when Yui sensed that Shinji wasn't piloting EVA-01, but a dumb AI, she refused as her way to tell Gendo : "Hey! That wasn't part of the plan! We planed that Rei and Shinji would awake me and preserved safely alongside me! I won't take any excuse, so now get back to our son and make him pilot me!"

Which would paint Yui on a more darker and manipulative light, but I never considered her as pure white, so since everyone in Rebuild seems to have a darker shade thrown in their character (even Kaworu!), why not Yui.

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

ElMariachi wrote:That's assuming that Rei know from who she has been cloned and that she knows what's Yui's objective is,

I never claimed she does, or that she's acting that way as some sort of deliberate "fuck you" to Yui. Just that she independently arrived at an opposite course of action, to reply to that previous poster who was entertaining/mentioning the possibility that Rei's actions were somehow meant to be seen as having some sort of inherent impulse to act just like Yui would, with the cooking thing and all that, which again, Shinji gave her the idea for.Neither of the girls are bothering with the kitchen stuff because that's so "cute and femenine"; It's the idea of doing for him what he always does for them.

Yours and Grand Duke's comments do sort of raise the question of how they'd act/get along if they ever met face to face, which they might have since they're currently both stuck in EVA , but given Shinji's experience of hardly any consciousness at all and no sense that any time passed, it remains dubious wether their current state allows them to converse. In series or manga!verse at least, Yui must know that Rei exists, since she's synched with EVa 01 a few times. Gendo expects Rei to know who she is when he mentions her in EoE, but to justify this she doesn't need to know more than that she used to be Gendo's wife. Since he still visits that grave once a year and Fuyu mentions her a lot, it must have come up at some point.

ElMariachi wrote:Or the Dummy System would had been obliterated by Big Z, that system seems to be slightly less powerful than Berserk Mode,

Except the only reason Shinji needed Berserk mode in the first place was that they had to launch him directly inside NERV hq without a power cable, because he arrived at the last second. He was essentially about to slowly rip it apart to see if he can find some half-digested Zerogoki bits or at least give it a painful death when, suddenly, 'opps, forgot that it was only one minute at full energy output, five's just the maximum runtime is it?'

He was just tearing and kicking at it in blind rage, nothing the Dummy couldn't have done, except imagine you launch it earlier on, with a power cable...